


The Eternal Struggle

by Kariachi



Series: Souls & Switches [4]
Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Anosmia, M/M, child neglect if you pay attention, denial is not allowed when your daemon is raelene, teenage daemons being teenage daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariachi/pseuds/Kariachi
Summary: All Cooper needed was some groceries delivered, that's all. But of course, Raelene has to make the entire afternoon an ordeal.





	The Eternal Struggle

“Sniff?” Raelene used the cabinetry to steady herself as she reared back, meeting the milk carton halfway down. The minute her nose came near the bottle her eyes blew wide and she threw herself back to the ground.

“Oh God,” she cried, shaking her head in an attempt to dislodge the smell, “toss, definitely!” Cooper’s shoulders slumped at her reaction and he sighed as he capped the carton and placed in on the counter for disposal.

“Okay, we’re not having macaroni then,” he said as his daemon returned to her normal spot laying on his feet.

“Do we still have that chicken Kevin made?” she asked.

“It’s been a week, does cooked chicken keep that long in a fridge?” Pulling the appropriate tupperware from one of the shelves, Cooper cracked the lid and looked inside. It didn’t seem to have gone off, there wasn’t any mold or anything, but only one way to be sure. “Sniff?” This time Raelene waited for him to bring the container to her, then pressed her nose to the opening between lid and tupperware.

“Smells fine to me.” Cooper smiled, feeling a trickle of relief at the confirmation, and backed out of the fridge carefully. He had to press the door against her bulk for a few seconds before his daemon finally groaned and got out of the way so he could close it.

“Chicken and coke then?” He dropped the carton of bad milk in the trash on his way to the silverware, glad he hadn’t gotten out the Kraft yet.

“Sounds like a plan.” Raelene collapsed again onto the floor, this time in range of both the microwave and the kitchen table, as Cooper popped the tupperware of chicken in to heat. He took the time to text Alan while they waited, asking him to bring milk the next time he and Monarch came to visit. It was going to be at least another week before his parents came home, and until then he was stuck with what they already had, delivery, and whatever their friends brought around.

Still it could have been worse, he supposed. At least he had Raelene and her super-nose there to keep him from accidentally killing himself via old groceries. There was a woman on one of the anosmia message boards he frequented who had a goldfinch daemon and his poor sense of smell meant that she suffered from anxiety whenever she was home alone for more than a few days at a time. It was too easy to not notice your food had gone off when you couldn’t smell it, or to not notice a gas leak, things of that nature. Sure Raelene was no bloodhound, but at least she could alert him to those dangers.

The microwave dinged at the same time Alan messaged him back, promising to stop by later with some milk and eggs. Cooper read the text off for Raelene before picking up a potholder and retrieving lunch.

“Ooo, do you think he’ll make us a cake,” she asked as he sat down.

“Rae!” The wombat daemon just looked up at him, ears perked.

“What? They make good cake.” She laid her head back down on her clawed forepaws and made a pleased sound. “Plus, Monarch always lets me help get any stray sugar out of her fur.” Cooper choked on a piece of skin, going bright red.

“ _Rae_!!”

“What?” Her face looked innocent enough, but her tone gave her away. “It’s a good thing. Play your cards right and eventually Alan may let you help _him_ get clean-”

“ _Raelene!!!_ ” His daemon burst into laughter, hefting herself to her feet and plodding over to try to climb into his lap. Cooper had no choice but to try to help, straining with the bulk of her.

“I swear you weigh more than Argit,” he grumbled as he heaved.

“I’m sturdy.”

“You’re _fat_.”

“Runs in the family.”

“ _Nothing_ runs in this family.” Both of them collapsed when she was finally settled on his legs, stretched out over them with both ends hanging off the sides.

“Anyway,” Raelene said, gasping, “you really need to chill about Alan.”

“You are a dirty, _filthy_ -minded daemon.” Not bothering to look down, Cooper tore a piece of skin off his chicken and handed it down to her. She took it from his fingers with care.

“Oh gee,” she mocked, one big, brown eye looking at him with amusement, “I wonder where I get that from.”

“You’re horrible,” he said in response and tore into a wing with was probably unnecessary finality.

Raelene refused to move when he was done, turning, as she tended to do, into ninety-four pounds of dead weight in his lap. For a few minutes Cooper considered whether he’d be able to shove her back to the floor, but decided not to try. He probably wouldn’t be able to if she tried to stay, and if he could then she would start insisting that he was strong enough to carry her around again.

He hadn’t carried her around for two years, since the day she settled as something that weighed nearly as much as him, and he didn’t plan to start again now. Her childhood ploy to be carried everywhere forever had failed and it was going to stay failed.

Cooper still hadn’t forgiven her for convincing their aunt to buy them a wagon after she settled. She hadn’t even thought that one through. What had she expected them to do about stairs?

“We can’t stay here forever, Rae.”

“Not forever, just until Alan and Monarch get here.”

“That could be hours.”

“The horror.”

There were moments Cooper hated his daemon.

“I have work to do.”

“You need a break.”

“You’re just lazy.”

“That too.”

“ _Hate_.” Raelene shuffled as close against his belly as she could with a contented huff.

“I love you too, Cooper.” 

It was two hours before Raelene let Cooper help her claw her way back down to the floor, she’d refused to move until exactly when Alan had texted to let them know they were at the door. She’d headed there with the same ‘this will kill me and it will be all your damn fault’ gait she had when she went anywhere, but her pace was solid and there was almost a pep to her waddle as she called out a preemptive greeting to Monarch.

A daemon like her made it really hard to deny not being straight.

“Hey,” Alan said once the door opened, hefting a plastic bag, “we brought milk and eggs.”

“Thanks.” Cooper grinned and ushered them in, trying to ignore the way Raelene- who generally refused to openly like people on the basis that they had to earn her affection and the standards were high- trotted in circles around Monarch’s hooves. She was a white-tail doe that day and occasionally trotted a few feet away with a bleat and a laugh as Raelene followed. “I ended up having to have leftovers for lunch.” Alan raised a brow at him.

“Kevin’s cooking?”

“Of course, I finished yours already.”

“Speaking of which,” Raelene said, “could you make us cake? Please? It’s always the best.” She wasn’t even looking at the boys, instead sitting behind Monarch and looking at her tail. Cooper was fairly certain she was trying to figure out whether she should try biting the doe’s hindquarters. He hoped she didn’t, he’d have to melt into a puddle right there in the kitchen.

Thankfully Alan didn’t seem to have noticed her behavior.

“No,” he said, and balked at what he found in their fridge when he went to put the milk in it. “Cooper, I don’t know if anyone told you this, but potatoes shouldn’t be blue.”

“What?” Cooper leaned over the taller boy’s shoulder, careful not to touch him, and blinked. That Tupperware had been behind the chicken. “I didn’t notice that.” Shaking his head, Alan picked up the container and tossed the entire thing into the trash, then looked around the house.

“So, I take it your folks aren’t back yet?” Out of the corner of his eye Cooper could see Monarch lay down and begin licking the top of Raelene’s head. She and Alan both had the same pitying look in their eyes. “You know you can come say with us…”

“We’re fine,” he said, maybe a bit too forcefully but still with a smile, “we can take care of ourselves.” Monarch snorted.

“Which is why the DNAliens got you.” Raelene nipped at her.

“We’ve improved the security system, better than Knox now.”

“And we should know.” Cooper smiled wider, then pulled the fridge back open and grabbed the new carton of milk. “Hey, wanna stay for dinner? There’s too much macaroni in one box for just me, and Rae gets gas if she eats too much dairy.” Alan doesn’t look sure, especially as Cooper grabs out the box of Kraft, but eventually he nods.

“Okay, just let me call my mom and tell her we’re staying over.” He left the room, heading for the living room with Monarch on his heels, her head lowered, and Cooper immediately wheeled on Raelene.

“What are you doing?!” he hissed as quietly as he could without losing the embarrassed outrage. Raelene seemed unperturbed.

“I was flirting.”

“Well stop it!”

“I think she might have been flirting back.”

“She wasn’t, now stop!” He gave her a glare that she rolled her eyes at and went to fill a pot with water, stopping halfway to turn and glare again. “And no biting her butt!” She reeled back at that one.

“I will bite her butt if I so choose!” 

“They’re not even settled!”

“The entire world doesn’t settle at twelve like us and you know it! Besides, Kevin and Annelie haven’t settled either and you wouldn’t say I couldn’t bite Annelie’s butt.”

“Annelie would _eat you_ if you bit her butt!”

“Still!”

“Also, no you can’t bite Annelie’s butt!”

Cooper was getting out all the things he needed to make the macaroni as he waited for the water to boil when Alan and Monarch came back. Monarch wasn’t a white-tail anymore but a much larger swamp deer and she settled down next to the still sulking Raelene with a small huff.

“Mom says we can stay,” Alan said, “but only if we’re back by eight.” Cooper nodded with another smile.

“Great! I was going to put some extra cheese in this, but if you want something feel free to grab it.”

“No, I’ll trust your cooking skills.” Raelene snorted. “He’s just cooking pasta, it’s not that rough.”

“Uh-huh,” she said with a wombat’s interpretation of a smirk, “you two may want to get your disappointment out tonight.” Cooper went pink and glared at her.

“Some soul I have, huh?” He gave a small smile to Alan, who returned it. “You know she’d sell me out for a motorized skateboard and a lifetime supply of cattails.”

“It’s okay, sometimes I think Monarch’s going to lead me into the middle of nowhere and separate us just to prove a point.” The two boys chuckled while their daemons shook their heads.

“They should be so lucky,” Monarch said, and Raelene nodded her agreement.

“How many people out there would kill for such wonderful daemons, but _they_ whine.”

“For shame.” Cooper and Alan shared a look.

“This is going to be a long dinner, isn’t it?”

“Aren’t they always?” Raelene snorted again, this time turning and smiling wistfully at Monarch as she spoke.

“The way they talk, you think anyone here thought that was a _bad_ thing.” Monarch licked her head again in response. Cooper immediately turned back to his pot, hoping Alan hadn’t noticed his cheeks darken.

Yep, made these things a _lot_ more difficult.

If this was how she was going to be, he really was in for a long visit.


End file.
